Slashdot

"Apple has begun manufacturing its A16 SoC at the newly-opened TSCM Fab 21 in Arizona," writes Slashdot reader NoMoreACs. AppleInsider reports: According to sources of Tim Culpan, Phase 1 of TSMC's Fab 21 in Arizona is making the A16 SoC of the iPhone 14 Pro in "small, but significant, numbers. The production is largely a test for the facility at this stage, but more production is expected in the coming months. The volume will ramp up massively once the second stage of the Phase 1 fab actually concludes. If everything stays on schedule, the Arizona plant will hit a target for production sometime in the first half of 2025. Sources say TSMC is achieving yields that are marginally behind those of Taiwan-based factories. Yield parity is expected to happen within months. TSMC has also raised its investment and moved to build additional plants in Arizona, with three set to be constructed in total. The U.S. Commerce Department previously claimed this will create 6,000 direct manufacturing jobs, on top of an estimated 20,000 construction jobs.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Late last month, Brazilian Justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered X to suspend operations in Brazil after a months-long dispute with X owner Elon Musk. The conflict centered on Musk's refusal to appoint a legal representative in the country and his refusal to take down disinformation and far-right accounts. However, on Wednesday, X bypassed the court-ordered block by utilizing third-party cloud services, allowing many Brazilian users to access the platform without the need for a virtual private network (VPN). From a report: The number of Brazilians accessing X is unknown, according to [Abrint, the Brazilian Association of Internet and Telecommunications Providers]. "I believe the change was probably intentional. Why would X use a third-party service that ends up being slower than its own?" said Basilio Perez, a board member at Abrint. Any revised order from Brazil's national telecommunications agency Anatel, which is responsible for implementing the court ruling, will need to be more specific, because blocking cloud access is complex and may jeopardize government agencies and financial services providers, Perez said. Anatel has identified the problem and is working to first notify content delivery network providers, followed by telecom companies to block access again to X in Brazil, according to a person familiar with the situation. The same person said it is not clear how long it will take for the providers to comply with the order.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

ZDNet's Steven Vaughan-Nichols reports: After 20 years, Real-Time Linux (PREEMPT_RT) is finally -- finally -- in the mainline kernel. Linus Torvalds blessed the code while he was at Open Source Summit Europe. [...] The real-time Linux code is now baked into all Linux distros as of the forthcoming Linux 6.12 kernel. This means Linux will soon start appearing in more mission-critical devices and industrial hardware. But it took its sweet time getting here. An RTOS is a specialized operating system designed to handle time-critical tasks with precision and reliability. Unlike general-purpose operating systems like Windows or macOS, an RTOS is built to respond to events and process data within strict time constraints, often measured in milliseconds or microseconds. As Steven Rostedt, a prominent real-time Linux developer and Google engineer, put it, "Real-time is the fastest worst-case scenario." He means that the essential characteristic of an RTOS is its deterministic behavior. An RTOS guarantees that critical tasks will be completed within specified deadlines. [...] So, why is Real-Time Linux only now completely blessed in the kernel? "We actually would not push something up unless we thought it was ready," Rostedt explained. "Almost everything was usually rewritten at least three times before it went into mainline because we had such a high bar for what would go in." In addition, the path to the mainline wasn't just about technical challenges. Politics and perception also played a role. "In the beginning, we couldn't even mention real-time," Rostedt recalled. "Everyone said, 'Oh, we don't care about real-time.'" Another problem was money. For many years funding for real-time Linux was erratic. In 2015, the Linux Foundation established the Real-Time Linux (RTL) collaborative project to coordinate efforts around mainlining PREEMPT_RT. The final hurdle for full integration was reworking the kernel's print_k function, a critical debugging tool dating back to 1991. Torvalds was particularly protective of print_k --He wrote the original code and still uses it for debugging. However, print_k also puts a hard delay in a Linux program whenever it's called. That kind of slowdown is unacceptable in real-time systems. Rostedt explained: "Print_k has a thousand hacks to handle a thousand different situations. Whenever we modified print_k to do something, it would break one of these cases. The thing about print_k that's great about debugging is you can know exactly where you were when a process crashed. When I would be hammering the system really, really hard, and the latency was mostly around maybe 30 microseconds, and then suddenly it would jump to five milliseconds." That delay was the print_k message. After much work, many heated discussions, and several rejected proposals, a compromise was reached earlier this year. Torvalds is happy, the real-time Linux developers are happy, print_K users are happy, and, at long last, real-time Linux is real.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Data Center Dynamics: BlackRock plans to launch a new $30 billion artificial intelligence (AI) investment fund focused on data centers and energy projects. Microsoft and Abu Dhabi-backed investment company MGX are general partners of the fund. GPU giant Nvidia will also advise. Run through BlackRock's Global Infrastructure Partners fund, which it acquired for $12.5 billion earlier this year, the 'Global AI Investment Partnership,' plans to raise up to $30 billion in equity investments. Another $70 billion could come via leveraged debt financing. "Mobilizing private capital to build AI infrastructure like data centers and power will unlock a multi-trillion-dollar long-term investment opportunity," said Larry Fink, chairman and CEO of BlackRock. "Data centers are the bedrock of the digital economy, and these investments will help power economic growth, create jobs, and drive AI technology innovation." Brad Smith, Microsoft's president, added: "The capital spending needed for AI infrastructure and the new energy to power it goes beyond what any single company or government can finance. This financial partnership will not only help advance technology, but enhance national competitiveness, security, and economic prosperity." Bayo Ogunlesi, CEO of Global Infrastructure Partners, said: "There is a clear need to mobilize significant amounts of private capital to fund investments in essential infrastructure. One manifestation of this is the capital required to support the development of AI. We are highly confident that the combined capabilities of our partnership will help accelerate the pace of investments in AI-related infrastructure."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Register's Jessica Lyons reports: Chinese state-sponsored spies have been spotted inside a global engineering firm's network, having gained initial entry using an admin portal's default credentials on an IBM AIX server. In an exclusive interview with The Register, Binary Defense's Director of Security Research John Dwyer said the cyber snoops first compromised one of the victim's three unmanaged AIX servers in March, and remained inside the US-headquartered manufacturer's IT environment for four months while poking around for more boxes to commandeer. It's a tale that should be a warning to those with long- or almost-forgotten machines connected to their networks; those with shadow IT deployments; and those with unmanaged equipment. While the rest of your environment is protected by whatever threat detection you have in place, these legacy services are perfect starting points for miscreants. This particular company, which Dwyer declined to name, makes components for public and private aerospace organizations and other critical sectors, including oil and gas. The intrusion has been attributed to an unnamed People's Republic of China team, whose motivation appears to be espionage and blueprint theft. It's worth noting the Feds have issued multiple security alerts this year about Beijing's spy crews including APT40 and Volt Typhoon, which has been accused of burrowing into American networks in preparation for destructive cyberattacks. After discovering China's agents within its network in August, the manufacturer alerted local and federal law enforcement agencies and worked with government cybersecurity officials on attribution and mitigation, we're told. Binary Defense was also called in to investigate. Before being caught and subsequently booted off the network, the Chinese intruders uploaded a web shell and established persistent access, thus giving them full, remote access to the IT network -- putting the spies in a prime position for potential intellectual property theft and supply-chain manipulation. If a compromised component makes it out of the supply chain and into machinery in production, whoever is using that equipment or vehicle will end up feeling the brunt when that component fails, goes rogue, or goes awry. "The scary side of it is: With our supply chain, we have an assumed risk chain, where whoever is consuming the final product -- whether it is the government, the US Department of the Defense, school systems a" assumes all of the risks of all the interconnected pieces of the supply chain," Dwyer told The Register. Plus, he added, adversarial nations are well aware of this, "and the attacks continually seem to be shifting left." That is to say, attempts to meddle with products are happening earlier and earlier in the supply-chain pipeline, thus affecting more and more victims and being more deep-rooted in systems. Breaking into a classified network to steal designs or cause trouble is not super easy. "But can I get into a piece of the supply chain at a manufacturing center that isn't beholden to the same standards and accomplish my goals and objectives?" Dwyer asked. The answer, of course, is yes. [...]Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee has approved the AM for Every Vehicle Act, which mandates that automakers include AM radio in new vehicles without additional charges. The Verge reports: The bill passed the committee on a roll-call vote of 45-2 and now heads to the full House for final approval. The bill, titled the AM for Every Vehicle Act, would direct the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to issue a rule that "requires automakers to maintain AM broadcast radio in their vehicles without a separate or additional payment, fee, or surcharge." Supporters say they are pushing the bill out of a concern that the slow demise of AM radio could make it more difficult to broadcast emergency information during a natural disaster or other related events. Conservatives are also worried about losing a lucrative platform for right-wing news and media. [...] Automakers generally see AM radio as an obsolete technology, arguing that there are other, better technologies, such as internet streaming, HD radio delivered on FM bands, or some apps that provide AM content that will make up for the absence of AM radio in vehicles. Critics say the bill could also add to the costs of producing EVs at a time when many manufacturers are struggling to rein in their costs. "With a new mandate, [EV companies] will have to go through a significant powertrain redesign, vehicle redesign," Albert Gore, executive director of the Zero Emission Transportation Association, said in an interview earlier this year, "because of the degree to which electric motor generates this [electromagnetic] interference."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: At its Made On YouTube event on Wednesday, the company announced a new dedicated space for creators to interact with their fans and viewers. The space, called "Communities," is kind of like a Discord server built into a creator's channel. With Communities, YouTube is hoping creators won't need to use other platforms like Discord or Reddit in order to interact with viewers. Communities are a space for viewers to post and interact with other fans directly within a creator's channel. In the past, viewers have been limited to leaving comments on a creator's video. Now, they can share their own content in a creator's Community to interact with other fans over shared interests. For instance, a fitness creator's Community could include posts from fans who are sharing videos and photos from their most recent hike. To start, the feature is only available to subscribers. The company sees Communities as a dedicated space for conversation and connection, while still allowing creators to maintain control over their content. Conversations in Communities are meant to flow over time, YouTube says, as they would in any other forum-style setting. The new Communities feature shouldn't be confused with YouTube's Community feature, which is a space for creators to share text and images with viewers. The feature launched back in 2016, and doesn't allow viewers to interact with each other. YouTube is testing Communities now on mobile devices with a small group of creators. The company plans to test the feature with more creators later this year before expanding access to additional channels in early 2025.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

OpenAI truly does not want you to know what its latest AI model is "thinking." From a report: Since the company launched its "Strawberry" AI model family last week, touting so-called reasoning abilities with o1-preview and o1-mini, OpenAI has been sending out warning emails and threats of bans to any user who tries to probe how the model works. Unlike previous AI models from OpenAI, such as GPT-4o, the company trained o1 specifically to work through a step-by-step problem-solving process before generating an answer. When users ask an "o1" model a question in ChatGPT, users have the option of seeing this chain-of-thought process written out in the ChatGPT interface. However, by design, OpenAI hides the raw chain of thought from users, instead presenting a filtered interpretation created by a second AI model. Nothing is more enticing to enthusiasts than information obscured, so the race has been on among hackers and red-teamers to try to uncover o1's raw chain of thought using jailbreaking or prompt injection techniques that attempt to trick the model into spilling its secrets.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

All seven independent directors of DNA-testing company 23andMe resigned Tuesday, following a protracted negotiation with founder and Chief Executive Anne Wojcicki over her plan to take the company private. WSJ: It is the latest challenge for 23andMe, which has struggled to find a profitable business model. The stock price fell to $0.30 per share after hours on Tuesday. At that price the company is worth less than the cash on its balance sheet. In a letter addressed to Wojcicki, the directors wrote that "after months of work, we have yet to receive from you a fully financed, fully diligenced, actionable proposal that is in the best interests of the non-affiliated shareholders." It is very rare for a publicly traded company to see so many directors resign simultaneously. The board members wrote that they differ with Wojcicki on the "strategic direction for the company" and because of her voting power, it was best that they resign. Wojcicki controls 49% of 23andMe votes, giving her a level of control that blocked board members from shopping the company to other potential bidders. She is the only remaining board member after the resignations. Further reading: 23andMe's Fall From $6 Billion To Nearly $0 (January 2024)Read more of this story at Slashdot.

IBM has been laying off a substantial number of employees this week and is trying to keep it quiet, The Register reported Wednesday, citing its sources. From the report: One IBM employee told The Register that IBM Cloud experienced "a massive layoff" in the past few days that affected thousands of people. "Unlike traditional layoffs, this one was done in secret," the insider said. "My manager told me that they were required to sign an NDA not to talk about the specifics." Multiple posts on layoff-focused message boards and corroborating accounts with other sources familiar with the IT giant's operations suggest the cuts are large. Asked to confirm the layoffs, an IBM spokesperson told The Register, "Early this year, IBM disclosed a workforce rebalancing charge that would represent a very low single digit percentage of IBM's global workforce, and we still expect to exit 2024 at roughly the same level of employment as we entered with."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Apple's VP of camera software engineering Jon McCormack has affirmed the company's commitment to traditional photography in an interview, contrasting with Google's "memories" approach for Pixel cameras. (A Google executive said last month of the AI usage in the pictures Pixel smartphone owners take: "What some of these edits do is help you create the moment that is the way you remember it, that's authentic to your memory and to the greater context, but maybe isn't authentic to a particular millisecond.") The Verge: I asked Apple's VP of camera software engineering Jon McCormack about Google's view that the Pixel camera now captures "memories" instead of photos, and he told me that Apple has a strong point of view about what a photograph is -- that it's something that actually happened. It was a long and thoughtful answer, so I'm just going to print the whole thing: "Here's our view of what a photograph is. The way we like to think of it is that it's a personal celebration of something that really, actually happened. "Whether that's a simple thing like a fancy cup of coffee that's got some cool design on it, all the way through to my kid's first steps, or my parents' last breath, It's something that really happened. It's something that is a marker in my life, and it's something that deserves to be celebrated. "And that is why when we think about evolving in the camera, we also rooted it very heavily in tradition. Photography is not a new thing. It's been around for 198 years. People seem to like it. There's a lot to learn from that. There's a lot to rely on from that. "Think about stylization, the first example of stylization that we can find is Roger Fenton in 1854 -- that's 170 years ago. It's a durable, long-term, lasting thing. We stand proudly on the shoulders of photographic history." Further reading: 'There is No Such Thing as a Real Picture,' Says Samsung Exec.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

International police forces have taken down an encrypted communication platform and arrested 51 people, marking a success for co-ordinated efforts to crack down on anonymous messaging services used by criminal groups. FT: Europol and law enforcement agencies from nine countries dismantled Ghost [non-paywalled source], an online platform which used three different encryption standards and allowed users to destroy all messages by sending a specific code, Europol announced on Wednesday. The crackdown is the latest operation by international agencies to decode encrypted messaging services used by criminals to manage their international operations, following the takedown of platforms such as EncroChat and Sky ECC in recent years. [...] McLean said Ghost was administered by a 32-year-old man from Australia, one of the operation's principal targets. As a result of the decryption operation, where officers broke the app's code so they could read users' messages, the death or injury of as many as 50 people could have been prevented, McLean said.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Federal Reserve cut its benchmark interest rate by half a percentage point [non-paywalled source] on Wednesday and signalled more reductions would follow, launching its first easing cycle since the onset of the pandemic. Financial Times: The US central bank's first cut in more than four years leaves the federal funds rate at a range of 4.75 per cent. Michelle Bowman, a governor on the Federal Open Market Committee, voted against the decision, favouring a quarter-point reduction. The half-point cut is larger than the Fed's more customary quarter-point pace and suggests the US central bank is concerned about the prospects of a weakening economy after more than a year of holding rates at a 23-year high.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Last week, the FBI took control of a botnet made up of hundreds of thousands of internet-connected devices, such as cameras, video recorders, storage devices, and routers, which was run by a Chinese government hacking group, FBI director Christopher Wray and U.S. government agencies revealed Wednesday. The hacking group, dubbed Flax Typhoon, was "targeting critical infrastructure across the U.S. and overseas, everyone from corporations and media organizations to universities and government agencies," Wray said at the Aspen Cyber Summit cybersecurity conference on Wednesday. "But working in collaboration with our partners, we executed court-authorized operations to take control of the botnet's infrastructure," Wray said, explaining that once the authorities did that, the FBI also removed the malware from the compromised devices. "Now, when the bad guys realized what was happening, they tried to migrate their bots to new servers and even conducted a [Distributed Denial of Service] attack against us."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: LinkedIn is using its users' data for improving the social network's generative AI products, but has not yet updated its terms of service to reflect this data processing, according to posts from various LinkedIn users and a statement from the company to 404 Media. Instead, the company says it will update its terms "shortly." The move is unusual in that LinkedIn appears to have gone ahead with training AI on its users' data, even creating a new option in its settings, without updating its terms of service, which is traditionally one of the main documents that can explain how users' data is collected or used.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Fossil fuel companies pumped at least $5.6bn of sponsorship money into motorsports, football, golf and even snow sports in an effort to "buy social licence to operate," according to a new report. From a report: Almost no major spectator sport remains untouched by oil and gas money, according to research carried out by the New Weather Institute (NWI), a climate thinktank, which traced more than 200 sponsorship deals between sports teams and the industry. In addition, sports stars such as Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi, Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua have all been successfully recruited to spend time in the Middle East as part of sponsorship deals, the report says. It comes as concern grows about the fossil fuel industry's increasing efforts to launder its global standing through "sportswashing" -- a practice, long used by nation states, of building associations with sporting events to improve tarnished reputations. In 2023, Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, said: "If sportswashing is going to increase my GDP by 1%, then we'll continue doing sportswashing." According to NWI's Dirty Money report, Aramco, Saudi Arabia's national oil company, was the biggest single investor in sports sponsorship identified by NWI's report, handing out almost $1.3bn across 10 deals. The petrochemical company Ineos was second, with $777m in sponsorship deals; Shell had sponsored sports to the tune of $470m; and TotalEnergies, France's leading oil company, had $340m in deals.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Israel blew up thousands of two-way personal radios used by Hezbollah members in Lebanon in a second wave of an intelligence operation that started on Tuesday with the explosions of pager devices, two sources with knowledge of the operation told Axios. The second wave of clandestine attacks is another serious security breach in Hezbollah's ranks and increases the pressure on the militant Lebanese group. Lebanon's official news agency reported that at least three people were killed and dozens wounded in the explosions across the country. The walkie-talkies were booby-trapped in advance by Israeli intelligence services and then delivered to Hezbollah as part of the militia's emergency communications system, which was supposed to be used during a war with Israel, the sources said.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Israel blew up thousands of two-way personal radios used by Hezbollah members in Lebanon in a second wave of an intelligence operation that started on Tuesday with the explosions of pager devices, two sources with knowledge of the operation told Axios. The second wave of clandestine attacks is another serious security breach in Hezbollah's ranks and increases the pressure on the militant Lebanese group. Lebanon's official news agency reported that at least three people were killed and dozens wounded in the explosions across the country. The walkie-talkies were booby-trapped in advance by Israeli intelligence services and then delivered to Hezbollah as part of the militia's emergency communications system, which was supposed to be used during a war with Israel, the sources said. Associated Press reports: Lebanon's official news agency reports that solar energy systems exploded in homes in several areas of Beirut and in southern Lebanon, wounding at least one girl.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

YouTube has announced a series of AI-related features on the platform, including a couple that might change how creators make videos -- and the videos they make. From a report: The first feature is the new Inspiration tab in the YouTube Studio app, which YouTube has been testing in a limited way over the last few months. The tab's job is, essentially, to tell you what to make: the AI-powered tool will suggest a concept for a video, provide a title and a thumbnail, and even write an outline and the first few lines of the video for you. YouTube frames it as a helpful brainstorming tool but also acknowledges that you can use it to build out entire projects. And I'm just guessing here, but I'd bet those AI-created ideas are going to be pretty darn good at gaming the YouTube algorithm. Once you have some AI inspiration, you can make some AI videos with Veo, the superpowerful DeepMind video model that is now being integrated into YouTube Shorts. Veo is mostly going to be part of the "Dream Screen" feature YouTube has been working on, which is an extension of the green screen concept but with AI-generated backgrounds of all sorts. You'll also be able to make full Veo videos, too, but only with clips up to six seconds long. (After a few seconds, AI video tends to get... really weird.)Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The entertainment company behind "The Hunger Games" and "Twilight" plans to start using generative AI in the creation of its new movies and TV shows, a sign of the emerging technology's advance in Hollywood. From a report: Lions Gate Entertainment has agreed to give Runway, one of several fast-evolving AI startups, access to its content library in exchange for a new, custom AI model that the studio can use in the editing and production process. The deal -- the first of its kind for Runway and one that could become a blueprint in the entertainment industry -- comes as creatives, actors and studio executives debate whether to use the new technology and how to protect their copyright material. Advocates say generative AI can enhance creators' work and help a cash-strapped industry save time and money. Michael Burns, vice chairman of Lionsgate Studio, expects the company to be able to save "millions and millions of dollars" from using the new model. The studio behind the "John Wick" franchise and "Megalopolis" plans to initially use the new AI tool for internal purposes like storyboarding -- laying out a series of graphics to show how a story unfolds -- and eventually creating backgrounds and special effects, like explosions, for the big screen.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CBC News: Inside a bustling unit at St. Michael's Hospital in downtown Toronto, one of Shirley Bell's patients was suffering from a cat bite and a fever, but otherwise appeared fine -- until an alert from an AI-based early warning system showed he was sicker than he seemed. While the nursing team usually checked blood work around noon, the technology flagged incoming results several hours beforehand. That warning showed the patient's white blood cell count was "really, really high," recalled Bell, the clinical nurse educator for the hospital's general medicine program. The cause turned out to be cellulitis, a bacterial skin infection. Without prompt treatment, it can lead to extensive tissue damage, amputations and even death. Bell said the patient was given antibiotics quickly to avoid those worst-case scenarios, in large part thanks to the team's in-house AI technology, dubbed Chartwatch. "There's lots and lots of other scenarios where patients' conditions are flagged earlier, and the nurse is alerted earlier, and interventions are put in earlier," she said. "It's not replacing the nurse at the bedside; it's actually enhancing your nursing care." A year-and-a-half-long study on Chartwatch, published Monday in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, found that use of the AI system led to a striking 26 percent drop in the number of unexpected deaths among hospitalized patients. The research team looked at more than 13,000 admissions to St. Michael's general internal medicine ward -- an 84-bed unit caring for some of the hospital's most complex patients -- to compare the impact of the tool among that patient population to thousands of admissions into other subspecialty units. "At the same time period in the other units in our hospital that were not using Chartwatch, we did not see a change in these unexpected deaths," said lead author Dr. Amol Verma, a clinician-scientist at St. Michael's, one of three Unity Health Toronto hospital network sites, and Temerty professor of AI research and education in medicine at University of Toronto. "That was a promising sign." The Unity Health AI team started developing Chartwatch back in 2017, based on suggestions from staff that predicting deaths or serious illness could be key areas where machine learning could make a positive difference. The technology underwent several years of rigorous development and testing before it was deployed in October 2020, Verma said. Dr. Amol Verma, a clinician-scientist at St. Michael's Hospital who helped lead the creation and testing of CHARTwatch, stands at a computer. "Chartwatch measures about 100 inputs from [a patient's] medical record that are currently routinely gathered in the process of delivering care," he explained. "So a patient's vital signs, their heart rate, their blood pressure ... all of the lab test results that are done every day." Working in the background alongside clinical teams, the tool monitors any changes in someone's medical record "and makes a dynamic prediction every hour about whether that patient is likely to deteriorate in the future," Verma told CBC News.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Longtime Slashdot reader theodp writes: Python in Excel is now generally available for Windows users of Microsoft 365 Business and Enterprise," Microsoft announced in a Monday blog post. "Last August, in partnership with Anaconda, we introduced an exciting new addition to Excel by integrating Python, making it possible to seamlessly combine Python and Excel analytics within the same workbook, no setup required. Since then, we've brought the power of popular Python analytics libraries such as pandas, Matplotlib, and NLTK to countless Excel users." Microsoft also announced the public preview of Copilot in Excel with Python, which will take users' natural language requests for analysis and automatically generate, explain, and insert Python code into Excel spreadsheets. While drawing criticism for limiting Python execution to locked-down Azure cloud containers, Python in Excel has also earned accolades from the likes of Python creator Guido van Rossum, now a Microsoft Distinguished Engineer, as well as Pandas creator Wes McKinney. Left unmentioned in Monday's announcement is that Microsoft managed to convince the USPTO to issue it a patent in July 2024 on the Enhanced Integration of Spreadsheets With External Environments (alt. source), which Microsoft explains covers the "implementation of enhanced integrations of native spreadsheet environments with external resources such as-but not limited to-Python." All of which may come as a surprise to software vendors and individuals that were integrating Excel and external programming environments years before Microsoft filed its patent application in September 2022.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Wireless communication pagers, carried by thousands, exploded around the same time across Lebanon on Tuesday, injuring over 2,700 people and killing eight, in what security experts suspect was a sophisticated Israeli intelligence operation. New York Times: Hundreds of pagers blew up at the same time across Lebanon on Tuesday in an apparently coordinated attack that killed eight people and injured more than 2,700, health officials said on Tuesday. [...] Hezbollah said that pagers belonging to its members had exploded and accused Israel of being behind the attack. The Israeli military declined to comment. [...] Three officials briefed on the attack said that it had targeted hundreds of pagers belonging to Hezbollah operatives who have used such devices for years to make it harder for their messages to be intercepted. The devices were programmed to beep for several seconds before exploding, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter. Further reading: Reuters; CNN; NPR; Fox News; and WSJ. Edward Snowden said, "If it were iPhones that were leaving the factory with explosives inside, the media would be a hell of a lot faster to cotton on to what a horrific precedent has been set today. Nothing can justify this. It's a crime. A crime. And everyone in the world is less safe for it."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Neuralink said on Tuesday it has received the FDA's "breakthrough device" designation for its experimental implant aimed at restoring vision. Called Blindsight, the device "will enable even those who have lost both eyes and their optic nerve to see," said Neuralink founder Elon Musk. Reuters reports: The FDA's breakthrough tag is given to certain medical devices that provide treatment or diagnosis of life-threatening conditions. It is aimed at speeding up development and review of devices currently under development. Neuralink did not immediately respond to a request seeking details about when it expects the Blindsight device to move into human trials.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Per a recent update to Microsoft's Deprecated Windows features page, Legacy DRM services utilized by Windows Media Player and Silverlight clients for Windows 7 and Windows 8 are now deprecated. This will prevent the streaming or playback of DRM-protected content in those applications on those operating systems. It also includes playing content from personal CD rips and streaming from a Silverlight or Windows 8 client to an Xbox 360 if you were still doing that. For those unfamiliar, "DRM" refers to Digital Rights Management. Basically, DRM tech ensures that you aren't stealing or playing back pirated content. Of course, piracy still exists, but these days, most officially distributed movies, TV shows, games, etc., all involve some form of DRM unless explicitly advertised as DRM-free. DRM does seem like harmless piracy prevention on paper. Still, it hasn't been all that effective at eliminating piracy -- and where it is implemented, it mainly punishes or inconveniences paying customers. It is an excellent example of DRM's folly. Now, anyone who had previously opted into Microsoft's legitimate media streaming ecosystem with Windows 7 and 8 is being penalized for buying media legitimately since it will no longer work without them being forced to pivot to other streaming solutions.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from NBC News: Scientists in Brazil found microplastics in the brain tissue of cadavers, according to a new study published Monday in the journal JAMA Network Open. Mounting research over the last few years has found microplastics in nearly every organ in the body, as well as in the bloodstream and in plaque that clogs arteries. Whether these ubiquitous pollutants can reach the human brain has been a primary concern for scientists. The latest research looked at a part of the brain called the olfactory bulb, which processes information about smell. Humans have two olfactory bulbs, one above each nasal cavity. Connecting the olfactory bulb and the nasal cavity is the olfactory nerve. Some researchers worry the olfactory pathway may also be an entry point for microplastics getting into the brain, beyond the olfactory bulb. "Previous studies in humans and animals have shown that air pollution reaches the brain, and that particles have been found in the olfactory bulb, which is why we think the olfactory bulb is probably one of the first points for microplastics to reach the brain," said lead study author Dr. Thais Mauad, an associate professor of pathology at the University of Sao Paulo Medical School in Brazil. Mauad and her team took samples of olfactory bulb tissue from 15 cadavers of people who died between the ages of 33 and 100. Samples from eight of the cadavers contained microplastics -- tiny bits of plastic that ranged from 5.5 micrometers to 26.4 micrometers in size. In total, the researchers found 16 plastic fibers and particles in the tissues. The smallest were slimmer than the diameter of a human red blood cell, which measures about 8 micrometers. The most common type of plastic they found was polypropylene, followed by polyamide, nylon and polyethylene vinyl acetate. "The nose is a major point of defense to keep particles and dust out of the lungs," Campen wrote in an email. "So seeing some plastics in the olfactory system, especially given how they are being found everywhere else in the body, is completely expected." [...] "There is evidence that very small airborne particles can move to the brain via the olfactory bulb, but this is not known to be a major route of trafficking material to the brain," Campen said. Campen notes it's more likely that nanoplastics enter the brain through the bloodstream, which picks up plastic bits from the lungs or digestive tract, rather than the olfactory bulb. "However, it's extremely difficult for particles, even those in pharmaceuticals, to enter the brain through the blood," notes NBC News. "That's because the brain is surrounded by a semipermeable membrane called the blood-brain barrier."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Google said in a blog post today it will begin labeling AI-generated and AI-edited image search results later this year. Digital Trends reports: The company will flag such content through the "About this image" window and it will be applied to Search, Google Lens, and Android's Circle to Search features. Google is also applying the technology to its ad services and is considering adding a similar flag to YouTube videos, but will "have more updates on that later in the year," per the announcement post. Google will rely on Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA) metadata to identify AI-generated images. That's an industry group Google joined as a steering committee member earlier in the year. This "C2PA metadata" will be used to track the image's provenance, identifying when and where an image was created, as well as the equipment and software used in its generation.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Verge's Alex Heath reports: Snap's fifth-generation Spectacles have a richer, more immersive display. Using them feels snappier. They weigh less than their predecessor and last longer on a charge. Those are exactly the kinds of upgrades you'd expect from a product line that's technically eight years old. But the market for Spectacles -- and AR glasses in general -- still feels as nascent as ever. Snap has an idea for what could change that: developers. These new Spectacles, announced Tuesday at Snap's annual Partner Summit in Los Angeles, aren't being sold. Instead, Snap is repeating its playbook for the last version of Spectacles in 2021 and distributing them to the people who make AR lenses for Snapchat. This time around, though, there's an extra hurdle: you have to apply for access through Lens Studio, the company's desktop tool for creating AR software, and pay $1,188 to lease a pair for at least one year. (After a year, the subscription becomes $99 a month.) Yes, Snap is asking developers to pay $1,188 to build software for hardware with no user base. Even still, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel believes the interest will be there. "Our goal is really to empower and inspire the developer and AR enthusiast communities," he tells me. "This really is an invitation, and hopefully an inspiration, to create." [...] Ultimately, I'm skeptical of why developers will want to build software for Spectacles right now, given the lack of a market and the cost of getting access to a pair. Still, Spiegel believes enough of them are excited about the promise of AR glasses and that they'll want to help shape that future. "I think it's the same reason why developers were really excited with the early desktop computer or the reason why developers were really excited by the early smartphones," he says. "I think this is a group of visionary technologists who are really excited about what the future holds." Spiegel may be right. AR glasses may be the future, and Spectacles may be well-positioned to become the next major computing platform, even with competition heating up. But there's still a lot of progress that needs to happen for Snap's vision to become reality. Road to VR has a full list of specs embedded in their report. They also published a reveal trailer on YouTube.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Apple's iPadOS 18 update is no longer available after some iPad Pro owners found that it bricked their devices. MacRumors reports: There are reports on Reddit from iPad Pro users who had an interruption in the installation process, leading to an iPad that refused to turn on. A total replacement was required for affected users. Not all M4 iPad Pro owners have had an issue installing the update, and it could be linked to installing the new iOS 17.7 update before installing iOS 18. Apple will make the software available again when the underlying problem has been addressed.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from IGN: Final Fantasy 16 producer Naoki Yoshida has asked fans to please not make "offensive or inappropriate" mods upon the game's PC release tomorrow, September 17. Yoshida wouldn't comment on any specific mods he wants to see in Final Fantasy 16 in an interview with PC Gamer, though made clear what he doesn't want to see. "If we said, 'it'd be great if someone made X, Y, Z,' it might come across as a request, so I'll avoid mentioning any specifics here," Yoshida said. "The only thing I will say is that we definitely don't want to see anything offensive or inappropriate, so please don't make or install anything like that." Mods allow players to create custom content for games, often resulting in incredibly useful gameplay changes such as the ability to play Elden Ring with friends seamlessly, or major additions such as an entire new expansion for Fallout 4 or the ability to play as custom characters in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. Due to the nature of the internet, however, many mods are also, as Yoshida put it, "offensive or inappropriate." While cheating is one thing, fellow publisher Capcom expressed concern in November 2023 that "there are a number of mods that are offensive to public order and morals" which cause damage to the property itself.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Instagram has introduced new safety features that make teenage accounts private by default, enhance parental supervision, and set messaging restrictions to protect young users, requiring parental approval for changes. NPR reports: Meta said users under 16 will now need a parent's approval to change the restricted settings, dubbed "Teen Accounts," which filter out offensive words and limit who can contact them. "It's addressing the same three concerns we're hearing from parents around unwanted contact, inappropriate contact and time spent," said Naomi Gleit, Meta's head of product, in an interview with NPR. With teens all being switched to private accounts, they can only be messaged or tagged by people they follow. Content from accounts they don't follow will be in the most restrictive setting, and the app will make periodic screen time reminders under a revamped "take a break" feature. [...] Meta requires users to be at least 13 years old to create an account. Social media researchers, however, have long noted that young people can lie about their age to get on the platform and may have multiple fake accounts, known as "finstas," to avoid detection by their parents. Officials at Meta say they have built new artificial intelligence systems to detect teens who lie about their age. This is in addition to working with British company Yoti, which analyzes someone's face from their photos and estimates an age. Meta has partnered with the company since 2022. Since then, Meta has required teens to prove their age by submitting a video selfie or a form of identification. Now, Meta says, if a young person tries to log into a new account with an adult birthday, it will place them in the teen protected settings. While parental supervision on Instagram still requires both a teen and parent to opt in, the new policies add a feature that allows parents to see who their teens have been recently messaging (though not the content of the messages) and what subjects they are exploring on the app. Meta is hoping to avoid one worrisome situation: Someone who is not a parent finding a way to oversee a teen's account. "If we determine a parent or guardian is not eligible, they are blocked from the supervision experience," Meta wrote in a white paper about Tuesday's new child safety measures. [...] Meta points out that parents will be limited to viewing about three dozen topics that their teens are interested in, including things like outdoor activities, animals and music. Meta says the topic-viewing is less about parents surveilling kids and more about learning about a child's curiosities. Still, some of the new Instagram features for teens will be aimed at filtering out sensitive content from the app's Explore Page and on Reels, the app's short-form video service.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Mozilla is exiting the fediverse by shutting down its Mozilla.social Mastodon server on December 17. Moving forward, the company will focus on Firefox and AI, aligning with its strategy under interim CEO Laura Chambers to scale back investments in non-core products. TechCrunch reports: Mozilla.social was a small instance, having only 270 active users at the time of Tuesday's announcement. By comparison, the most popular Mastodon instance, Mastodon.social, has over 247,500 monthly active users. Mozilla had telegraphed its plans to scale back on its fediverse investments earlier this year after the CEO stepped down. At the time, Mozilla board member Laura Chambers took over the job as the interim CEO of Mozilla Corporation through the end of 2024. Shortly after the change in leadership, Mozilla said it would refocus its product strategy around Firefox and AI and significantly scale back or even shutter other efforts. Among those products affected by the pullback were its VPN, Relay, and Online Footprint Scrubber, in addition to its Mastodon instance, the company said at the time. Meanwhile, its virtual world Hubs was shut down. The redirection of Mozilla's efforts came after its flagship product, the Firefox web browser, spent years losing market share. That left room for other competitors, like the startup Arc, to take hold in the alternative browser market. Months prior to this change in strategy, Mozilla had been touting the fediverse's potential, but under Chambers, the company said that a more "modest approach" to the fediverse would have allowed it to participate with "greater agility." In an internal memo, Mozilla signaled that going forward, a "much smaller team" would participate in the Mastodon ecosystem. However, it didn't say at the time that the Mozilla.social instance would shut down, adding that it would continue to bring small experiments to those who participated on its instance. Mozilla said it was a "hard decision." "Thank you for being part of the Mozilla.social community and providing feedback during our closed beta. You can continue to use Mozilla.social until December 17," a post on Mastodon reads. Users can download their data or migrate their accounts at the respective links.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica, written by Scharon Harding: TCL has come under scrutiny this month after testing that claimed to examine three TCL TVs marketed as quantum dot TVs reportedly showed no trace of quantum dots. [...] Earlier this month, South Korean IT news publication ETNews published a report on testing that seemingly showed three TCL quantum dot TVs, marketed as QD TVs, as not having quantum dots present. Hansol Chemical, a Seoul-headquartered chemicals company, commissioned the testing. SGS, a Geneva-headquartered testing and certification company, and Intertek, a London-headquartered testing and certification company, performed the tests. The models examined were TCL's C755, said to be a quantum dot Mini LED TV, the C655, a purported quantum dot LED (QLED) TV, and the C655 Pro, another QLED. None of those models are sold in the US, but TCL sells various Mini LED and LED TVs in the US that claim to use quantum dots. According to a Google translation, ETNews reported: "According to industry sources on the 5th, the results of tests commissioned by Hansol Chemical to global testing and certification agencies SGS and Intertek showed that indium... and cadmium... were not detected in three TCL QD TV models. Indium and cadmium are essential materials that cannot be omitted in QD implementation." The testing was supposed to detect cadmium if present at a minimum concentration of 0.5 mg per 1 kg, while indium was tested at a minimum detection standard of 2 mg/kg or 5 mg/kg, depending on the testing lab. [...] In response to the results from SGS and Intertek, a TCL representative told ETNews and The Korea Times that TCL is "manufacturing TV sets with QD films supplied by three companies" and that "the amount of quantum dots... in the film may vary depending on the supplier, but it is certain that cadmium is included." TCL also published testing results on May 10 commissioned by Guangdong Region Advanced Materials, one of TCL's quantum dot film suppliers. Interestingly, SGS, one of the companies that found that TCL's TVs lacked quantum dots, performed the tests. This time, SGS detected the presence of cadmium in the TV films at a concentration of 4 mg/kg (an image of the results can be seen via ETNews here). TCL also said that it "confirmed the fluorescent characteristics of QD," per Google's translation, and provided a spectrogram purportedly depicting the presence of quantum dots in its TVs' quantum dot films. [...] TCL obviously has reason to try to push results that show the presence of cadmium. However, some analysts and publications have pointed out that Hansol could have reason to push results claiming the opposite. As mentioned above, Hansol is in the chemical manufacturing and distribution business. It notably does not sell to TCL but does have a customer in TCL rival Samsung. Taking a step back further, Hansol is headquartered in Seoul and is considered a chaebol. TV giants Samsung and LG are also chaebols, and the South Korean government has reported interest in Samsung and LG continuing to be the world's biggest TV companies-titles that are increasingly challenged by Chinese brands. It has previously been reported that the South Korean government urged Samsung and LG to meet with each other to help ensure their leadership. The talks resulted in a partnership between the two companies reportedly centered on counteracting high prices that Samsung was facing for TV components sold by Chinese companies. With this background in mind, Hansol could be viewed as a biased party when it sought testing for TCL quantum dot TVs. "I'm really puzzled by Hansol's results," said Eric Virey, principal displays analyst at Yole Intelligence. "I have a very hard time believing that TCL would go through the troubles of making ... 'fake' QD films without QDs: this would cost almost as much as making a real QD films but without the performance benefits." Ars Technica concludes: "As previously stated, it's possible that TCL is indeed using quantum dots but is using them in a small amount alongside phosphor. If true, the performance may not be as high as it would be with other designs, but it would also mean that TCL's quantum dot TVs aren't bogus. As it stands, the situation could benefit from more, preferably third-party, testing..."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Salesforce is unveiling a pivot in its AI strategy this week at its annual Dreamforce conference, now saying that its AI tools can handle tasks without human supervision and changing the way it charges for software. From a report: The company is famous for ushering in the era of software as a service, which involves renting access to computer applications via a subscription. But as generative AI shakes up the industry, Salesforce is rethinking its business model for the emerging technology. The software giant will charge $2 per conversation held by its new "agents" -- generative AI built to handle tasks like customer service or scheduling sales meetings without the need for human supervision. The new pricing strategy also seeks to protect Salesforce if AI contributes to future job losses and business customers have fewer workers to buy subscriptions to the company's software. Salesforce is even leaning into the employee-replacement potential of the new technology. Its new AI agents will let companies increase their workforce capacity during busy periods without having to hire additional full-time employees or "gig workers," Chief Executive Officer Marc Benioff said Tuesday during a keynote speech at the company's annual Dreamforce conference.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: September has been a big month for desktop hypervisors, with the field's big players all delivering significant updates. Oracle delivered VirtualBox version 7.1, billed as a major upgrade thanks to its implementation of a UI with a "modernized look and feel, offering a selection between Basic and Experienced user level with reduced or full UI functionality." [...] Parallels also released a desktop hypervisor update last week. Version 20 of the eponymous tool now offers a VM that's packed with tools developers may find handy as they work on generative AI applications. Among those tools are the Docker community edition, lmutils, the OpenCV computer vision library, and the Ollama chatbot interface for AI models. [...] The other big player in desktop hypervisors is VMware, with its Fusion and Workstation products for macOS and Windows respectively. Both were recently updated.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

IBM has acquired Kubecost, a FinOps startup that helps teams at companies like Allianz, Audi, Rakuten, and GitLab monitor and optimize their Kubernetes clusters with a focus on efficiency and, ultimately, cost. From a report: Tuesday's announcement follows IBM's $4.3 billion acquisition of Apptio in 2023, another company in the FinOps space. In previous years, we also saw IBM acquire companies like cloud app and network management firm Turbonomic and application performance management startup Instana. Now with the acquisition of KubeCost, IBM continues this effort to bolster its IT and FinOps capabilities as enterprises increasingly look to better manage their increasingly complex cloud and on-prem infrastructure.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. on Tuesday proposed a new rule forcing banks to keep detailed records for customers of fintech apps after the failure of tech firm Synapse resulted in thousands of Americans being locked out of their accounts. From a report: The rule, aimed at accounts opened by fintech firms that partner with banks, would make the institution maintain records of who owns it and the daily balances attributed to the owner, according to an FDIC memo. Fintech apps often lean on a practice where many customers' funds are pooled into a single large account at a bank, which relies on either the fintech or a third party to maintain ledgers of transactions and ownership. That situation exposed customers to the risk that the nonbanks involved would keep shoddy or incomplete records, making it hard to determine who to pay out in the event of a failure. That's what happened in the Synapse collapse, which impacted more than 100,000 users of fintech apps including Yotta and Juno. Customers with funds in these "for benefit of" accounts have been unable to access their money since May.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Luxury camera maker Leica Camera reported record sales in 2023, defying the global decline in digital camera demand. The German company's Q3 model, priced at $6,000, saw six-month waiting lists upon release last year. Industry data shows premium camera sales are surging as smartphone photography dominates the consumer market, Economist writes. The Camera and Imaging Products Association reports the average camera price has tripled in six years as manufacturers shift focus to high-end models. Fujifilm's X100 series, launched in February at $1,600, is sold out and commanding higher prices on secondary markets. Nikon and other brands are following suit, prioritizing premium offerings. From a report: In a Japanese interview with Yomiuri, Nikon's president, Muneaki Tokunari, acknowledged that while smartphones harmed overall sales of digital interchangeable lens cameras, they may contribute to the demand for high-end cameras. Not many years removed from dire straits, Tokunari also outlined Nikon's ambitious expansion plans, including its recent acquisition of RED Digital Cinema. Tokunari says that many camera businesses were recently operating at a loss and that some competitors excited the photo business altogether. This was, unsurprisingly, driven in large part by the massive growth of the smartphone market and the improving quality of smartphone cameras, which reached the "good enough" stage the late Steve Jobs predicted years before the camera industry felt the sting of smartphones. However, "We are now in an age where smartphones and digital cameras can coexist," Tokunari explains in the machine-translated Yomiuri interview, initially spotted by Digicame-Info. "Global sales of digital cameras have fallen to one-twentieth of their peak. However, domestic companies are doing well. The top five companies hold most of the world's market share. This is a rare example in Japanese industry."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Bruce66423 writes: Allowing flexible working and working from home creates a more productive, loyal workforce, the business secretary has said. In an interview with the Times, Jonathan Reynolds said employers "need to judge people on outcomes and not a culture of presenteeism." Labour is poised to unveil its Employment Rights Bill, which includes measures such as a right to "disconnect" outside working hours, a ban on zero-hours contracts and allowing workers to compress their contracted hours into fewer working days. Business groups have raised concerns about the plans, warning it could push up the cost of hiring staff and have the unintended consequence of ending overtime. However, Reynolds said Labour's plans to address workers' rights should not be alarming for business leaders. Since April, workers have had the right -- introduced under the previous government -- to ask for flexible working as soon as they start a job, but firms do not have to agree.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: Eric and Donald Trump Jr., the sons of former president Donald Trump, have pledged to "make finance great again" with a new family-run crypto endeavor called World Liberty Financial. Introduced in a meandering livestream on X Monday, the Trump family and their associates described World Liberty Financial as a crypto platform that would let users conduct transactions without a bank sitting in the middle and extracting fees -- a concept known as decentralized finance, or DeFi. While short on details, Donald Trump, Jr. and Eric Trump both stressed repeatedly that World Liberty Financial's primary goal was to make DeFi more broadly accessible. "It's truly our job to make it understandable," said Eric Trump during the livestream. "We have to make it intuitive, we have to make it user-friendly, and we will." Former President Donald Trump joined the call as well, stressing his pro-crypto stance. "I do believe in it," said Trump of cryptocurrency generally. "It has a chance to really be something special." The Trumps aren't alone in leading World Liberty Financial. They're joined by crypto veterans Chase Herro and Zak Folkman, as well as Steve Witkoff, a real estate investor and friend of Donald Trump's. In addition to the platform itself, World Liberty Financial will come with a governance token, WLFI, which will provide owners the right to vote "on matters of the platform." Approximately 63 percent of the tokens will be sold to the public; 17 percent are set aside for user rewards, and 20 percent will be reserved for World Liberty Financial team compensation. [...] World Liberty Financial will face steep competition in a DeFi market already crowded with similar services, among them Aave, Compound, Venus Protocol, and others. "DeFi is pretty mature, especially on the over-collateralized side," says Zach Hamilton, founder of crypto startup Sarcophagus and venture partner at VC firm Venture51. But the Trumps need not necessarily do anything novel, if they can capitalize on their mammoth public platform to peddle the new venture. "[World Liberty Financial] is launching with the most free marketing that any crypto company could ever get," says Hamilton. "Trump is the king of living rent free in people's minds." "I welcome any effort to bring DeFi into the mainstream," says Brad Harrison, CEO of Venus Protocol. "But like the autopilot in a Tesla, DeFi may give the appearance of something that's simple, but the inner workings are complex. Without a solid grasp of its nuances in the hands of seasoned technologists and financial engineers, a new platform risks being more of a branding exercise than a substantive and safe contribution to the space."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Google is updating the post-quantum cryptography in Chrome, replacing the experimental Kyber with the fully standardized Module Lattice Key Encapsulation Mechanism (ML-KEM) to enhance protection against quantum computing attacks. BleepingComputer reports: This change comes roughly five months after Google rolled out the post-quantum secure TLS key encapsulation system on Chrome stable for all users, which also caused some problems with TLS exchanges. The move from Kyber to ML-KEM though is not related to those early problems, that got resolved soon after manifesting. Rather, its a strategic choice to abandon an experimental system for a NIST-approved and fully standardized mechanism. ML-KEM was fully endorsed by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in mid-August, with the agency publishing the complete technical specifications of the final version at the time. Google explains that despite the technical changes from Kyber to ML-KEM being minor, the two are essentially incompatible, so a switch had to be made. "The changes to the final version of ML-KEM make it incompatible with the previously deployed version of Kyber," explains Google. "As a result, the codepoint in TLS for hybrid post-quantum key exchange is changing from 0x6399 for Kyber768+X25519, to 0x11EC for ML-KEM768+X25519."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Google's philanthropic arm is partially funding a new initiative that "aims to deploy more than 50 small satellites in low-Earth orbit to pinpoint flare-ups as small as a classroom anywhere in the world," reports Ars Technica. From the report: The FireSat constellation, managed by a nonprofit called Earth Fire Alliance (EFA), will be the first satellite fleet dedicated to detecting and tracking wildfires. Google announced a fresh investment of $13 million in the FireSat constellation Monday, building on the tech giant's previous contributions to support the development of custom infrared sensors for the FireSat satellites. Google's funding commitment will maintain the schedule for the launch of the first FireSat pathfinder satellite next year, EFA said. The first batch of satellites to form an operational constellation could launch in 2026. The FireSat satellites will be built by Muon Space, a California-based satellite manufacturing startup. Each of the Muon Space-built microsatellites will have six-band multispectral infrared instruments, eyeing a swath of Earth some 900 miles (1,500 kilometers) wide, to pinpoint hotspots from wildfires. The satellites will have the sensitivity to find wildfires as small as 16 by 16 feet (5 by 5 meters). The network will use Google AI to rapidly compare observations ofany area of this size with previous imagery to determine if there is a fire, according to Google. AI will also take into account factors like nearby infrastructure and local weather in each fire assessment. Google said it validated its detection model for smaller fires and established a baseline dataset for the AI by flying sensors over controlled burns. FireSat's partners announced the constellation in May after five years of development. The Environmental Defense Fund, the Moore Foundation, and the Minderoo Foundation also support the FireSat program. After detecting a wildfire, it's crucial for FireSat to quickly disseminate the location and size of a fire to emergency responders. With the first three satellites, the FireSat constellation will observe every point on Earth at least twice per day. "At full capability with 50+ satellites, the revisit times for most of the globe improve to 20 minutes, with the most wildfire-prone regions benefitting from sampling intervals as short as nine minutes," Muon Space said in a statement. "Today's announcement marks a significant milestone and step towards transforming the way we interact with fire," Earth Fire Alliance said in a statement. "As fires become more intense, and spread faster, we believe radical collaboration is key to driving much needed innovation in fire management and climate action."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: Scientists who helped pioneer artificial intelligence are warning that countries must create a global system of oversight to check the potentially grave risks posed by the fast-developing technology. The release of ChatGPT and a string of similar services that can create text and images on command have shown how A.I. is advancing in powerful ways. The race to commercialize the technology has quickly brought it from the fringes of science to smartphones, cars and classrooms, and governments from Washington to Beijing have been forced to figure out how to regulate and harness it. In a statement on Monday, a group of influential A.I. scientists raised concerns that the technology they helped build could cause serious harm. They warned that A.I. technology could, within a matter of years, overtake the capabilities of its makers and that "loss of human control or malicious use of these A.I. systems could lead to catastrophic outcomes for all of humanity." If A.I. systems anywhere in the world were to develop these abilities today, there is no plan for how to rein them in, said Gillian Hadfield, a legal scholar and professor of computer science and government at Johns Hopkins University. "If we had some sort of catastrophe six months from now, if we do detect there are models that are starting to autonomously self-improve, who are you going to call?" Dr. Hadfield said. On Sept. 5-8, Dr. Hadfield joined scientists from around the world in Venice to talk about such a plan. It was the third meeting of the International Dialogues on A.I. Safety, organized by the Safe AI Forum, a project of a nonprofit research group in the United States called Far.AI. Governments need to know what is going on at the research labs and companies working on A.I. systems in their countries, the group said in its statement. And they need a way to communicate about potential risks that does not require companies or researchers to share proprietary information with competitors. The group proposed that countries set up A.I. safety authorities to register the A.I. systems within their borders. Those authorities would then work together to agree on a set of red lines and warning signs, such as if an A.I. system could copy itself or intentionally deceive its creators. This would all be coordinated by an international body. Among the signatories was Yoshua Bengio, whose work is so often cited that he is called one of the godfathers of the field. There was Andrew Yao, whose course at Tsinghua University in Beijing has minted the founders of many of China's top tech companies. Geoffrey Hinton, a pioneering scientist who spent a decade at Google, participated remotely. All three are winners of the Turing Award, the equivalent of the Nobel Prize for computing. The group also included scientists from several of China's leading A.I. research institutions, some of which are state-funded and advise the government. A few former government officials joined, including Fu Ying, who had been a Chinese foreign ministry official and diplomat, and Mary Robinson, the former president of Ireland. Earlier this year, the group met in Beijing, where they briefed senior Chinese government officials on their discussion.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Former MoviePass CEO Mitch Lowe pleaded guilty to securities fraud, admitting he misled investors about the viability of the company's $9.95-a-month movie subscription service, and faces up to five years in prison. His co-defendant, former Helios and Matheson CEO Ted Farnsworth, faces similar charges and is scheduled for trial in March 2025; Farnsworth has been in federal custody since August 2023 due to bond violations involving misuse of company funds. Variety reports: Farnsworth and Lowe were the architects of MoviePass' doomed all-you-can-watch offering, which resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars in investor losses in 2017 and 2018. Investigators found that Lowe tried to stem the losses by throttling the service, forcing high-volume users to reset their passwords and verify their tickets. The two men were charged in November 2022 on counts of wire fraud and securities fraud. According to Lowe's plea agreement, the government estimates the total losses from the scheme at $303 million -- though Lowe contends it is less than that. Lowe remains free on bond, and is due back in court in Miami on March 21 for a status conference. Lowe published a memoir in 2022 in which he reflected on the downfall of MoviePass, entitled "Watch and Learn: How I Turned Hollywood Upside Down with Netflix, Redbox, and Moviepass."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Intel shares surged 8% after announcing plans to make its foundry business an independent unit with its own board and potential for outside capital, part of CEO Pat Gelsinger's strategy to restructure the company amid financial challenges. The company is also exploring the possibility of spinning off the foundry business, pausing some European manufacturing projects, and expanding its AI chip production partnership with Amazon Web Services to regain market share in the growing AI server chip industry. CNBC reports: As part of CEO Pat Gelsinger's effort to turn around the struggling chipmaker, Intel said in a memo to employees that it will also sell off part of its stake in Altera. Gelsinger said the restructuring would allow the foundry business to "evaluate independent sources of funding,a and comes days after Intel's board met to assess the direction and future of the company. The foundry business, which Intel plans to use to manufacture chips for other customers, has been a big drag on its bottom line, with the company spending roughly $25 billion on it in each of the last two years. Beyond just considering outside funding, Intel is weighing whether to spin off the foundry business, possibly into a separate publicly traded company, according to a person with knowledge of the matter who declined to be named in order to discuss confidential information. With a standalone "operating board" and a cleaner corporate structure, the mechanics of a separation become far easier than trying to turn a fully integrated unit into a separate company. [...] Intel will also pause its fabrication efforts in Poland and Germany "by approximately two years based on anticipated market demand," Gelsinger said, and pull back on its plans for its Malaysian factory. U.S. manufacturing projects will remain unaffected, the company said. In addition to the foundry announcement, Intel said it entered into a deal with Amazon Web Services to produce custom chips for AI, extending a long-running partnership between the two companies. Amazon is a big customer of Intel chips to power its AWS servers, and will buy a custom Xeon processor from Intel as well, Intel said. The move will potentially give Intel a new foothold in the growing industry for AI server chips. While Intel has several products that can be used for AI, including Gaudi 3, Nvidia has largely taken control of the market. Amazon has been developing its own AI chips, including one called Trainium, for over five years. Microsoft and Google have also invested heavily in custom chips to run AI, aiming to offer less expensive processors than Nvidia's general-purpose graphics processing units. Intel said that it would carry out its most advanced manufacturing, including the AI chip for AWS, at its plant in Ohio that's currently under construction. "All eyes will remain on us," Gelsinger said. "We need to fight for every inch and execute better than ever before. Because that's the only way to quiet our critics and deliver the results we know we're capable of achieving."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The FDA has approved sleep apnea detection on the Apple Watch Series 9, Series 10, and Watch Ultra 2. "The green light comes four days ahead of the Series 10's September 20 release date," notes TechCrunch. From the report: The feature, announced at last week's iPhone 16 event, will arrive as part of the imminent watchOS 11 release. Once enabled, it requires 10 nights of sleep tracking data spread out over a 30-day span to determine whether a user may have the condition. During that time, it also offers insights into nightly sleeping disturbances, utilizing the on-board accelerometer. The FDA classes the feature as an "over-the-counter device to assess risk of sleep apnea." Apple is quick to note that the addition is not a diagnostic tool. Rather, it will prompt users to seek a formal diagnosis from a healthcare provider. The condition, which causes breathing to become shallower or repeatedly stop during the night, is associated with a variety of different symptoms. The Mayo Clinic notes that it can cause insomnia, headaches, daytime sleepiness, and other longer-term conditions.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Associated Press: The Postal Service's new delivery vehicles aren't going to win a beauty contest. They're tall and ungainly. The windshields are vast. Their hoods resemble a duck bill. Their bumpers are enormous. "You can tell that (the designers) didn't have appearance in mind," postal worker Avis Stonum said. Odd appearance aside, the first handful of Next Generation Delivery Vehicles that rolled onto postal routes in August in Athens, Georgia, are getting rave reviews from letter carriers accustomed to cantankerous older vehicles that lack modern safety features and are prone to breaking down -- and even catching fire. Within a few years, the fleet will have expanded to 60,000, most of them electric models, serving as the Postal Service's primary delivery truck from Maine to Hawaii. Once fully deployed, they'll represent one of the most visible signs of the agency's 10-year, $40 billion transformation led by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, who's also renovating aging facilities, overhauling the processing and transportation network, and instituting other changes. The current postal vehicles -- the Grumman Long Life Vehicle, dating to 1987 -- have made good on their name, outlasting their projected 25-year lifespan. But they're well overdue for replacement. Noisy and fuel-inefficient (9 mpg), the Grummans are costly to maintain. They're scalding hot in the summer, with only an old-school electric fan to circulate air. They have mirrors mounted on them that -- when perfectly aligned -- allow the driver to see around the vehicle, but the mirrors constantly get knocked out of alignment. Alarmingly, nearly 100 of the vehicles caught fire last year, imperiling carriers and mail alike. The new trucks are being built with comfort, safety and utility in mind by Oshkosh Defense in South Carolina. Even tall postal carriers can stand up without bonking their heads and walk from front to back to retrieve packages. For safety, the vehicles have airbags, 360-degree cameras, blind-spot monitoring, collision sensors and anti-lock brakes -- all of which are missing on the Grummans. The new trucks also feature something common in most cars for more than six decades: air conditioning. And that's key for drivers in the Deep South, the desert Southwest and other areas with scorching summers. [...] Brian Renfroe, president of the National Letter Carriers Association, said union members are enthusiastic about the new vehicles, just as they were when the Grummans marked a leap forward from the previous old-school Jeeps. He credited DeJoy with bringing a sense of urgency to get them into production. "We're excited now to be at the point where they're starting to hit the streets," Renfroe said.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Oracle cofounder Larry Ellison envisions AI as the backbone of a new era of mass surveillance, positioning Oracle as a key player in AI infrastructure through its unique networking architecture and partnerships with AWS and Microsoft. The Register reports: Ellison made the comments near the end of an hour-long chat at the Oracle financial analyst meeting last week during a question and answer session in which he painted Oracle as the AI infrastructure player to beat in light of its recent deals with AWS and Microsoft. Many companies, Ellison touted, build AI models at Oracle because of its "unique networking architecture," which dates back to the database era. "AI is hot, and databases are not," he said, making Oracle's part of the puzzle less sexy, but no less important, at least according to the man himself - AI systems have to have well-organized data, or else they won't be that valuable. The fact that some of the biggest names in cloud computing (and Elon Musk's Grok) have turned to Oracle to run their AI infrastructure means it's clear that Oracle is doing something right, claimed now-CTO Ellison. "If Elon and Satya [Nadella] want to pick us, that's a good sign - we have tech that's valuable and differentiated," Ellison said, adding: One of the ideal uses of that differentiated offering? Maximizing AI's pubic security capabilities. "The police will be on their best behavior because we're constantly watching and recording everything that's going on," Ellison told analysts. He described police body cameras that were constantly on, with no ability for officers to disable the feed to Oracle. Even requesting privacy for a bathroom break or a meal only meant sections of recording would require a subpoena to view - not that the video feed was ever stopped. AI would be trained to monitor officer feeds for anything untoward, which Ellison said could prevent abuse of police power and save lives. [...] "Citizens will be on their best behavior because we're constantly recording and reporting," Ellison added, though it's not clear what he sees as the source of those recordings - police body cams or publicly placed security cameras. "There are so many opportunities to exploit AI," he said.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Apple today is rolling out iOS 18, introducing support for Rich Communications Services (RCS) to enhance messaging between iPhone and Android devices with features like typing indicators, read receipts, and higher resolution media. "However, there continues to be no end-to-end encryption (E2EE), with work towards that between Android and iOS continuing," notes 9to5Google. The feature will be enabled by default on iPhones with major U.S. carriers supported, but smaller MVNOs are not yet included.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from ZDNet, written by Steven Vaughan-Nichols: In a candid keynote chat at the Linux Foundation's Open Source Summit Europe, Linux creator Linus Torvalds shared his thoughts on kernel development, the integration of Rust, and the future of open source. Dirk Hohndel, Verizon's Open Source Program Office head and Torvalds friend, moderated their conversation about the Linux ecosystem. Torvalds emphasized that kernel releases, like the recent 6.11 version, are intentionally not exciting. "For almost 15 years, we've had a very good regular cadence of releases," he explained. With releases every nine weeks, this regularity aims for timeliness and reliability rather than flashy new features. The Linux creator noted that while drivers still make up the bulk of changes, core kernel development continues to evolve. "I'm still surprised that we're doing very core development," Torvalds said, mentioning ongoing work in virtual file systems and memory management. [...] Shifting back to another contentious subject -- maintainer burnout and succession planning -- Hohndel observed that "maintainers are aging. Strangely, some of us have, you know, not quite as much or the right hair color anymore." (Torvalds interjected that "gray is the right color.") Hohndel continued, "So the question that I always ask myself: Is it about time to talk about there being a mini-Linus?" Torvalds turned the question around. True, the Linux maintainers are getting older and people do burn out and go away. "But that's kind of normal. What is not normal is that people actually stay around for decades. That's the unusual thing, and I think that's a good sign." At the same time, Torvalds admitted, it can be intimidating for a younger developer to join the Linux kernel team "when you see all these people who have been around for decades, but at the same time, we have many new developers. Some of those new developers come in, and three years later, they are top maintainers." Hohndel noted that "to be the king of Linux, the main maintainer, you have to have a lot of experience. And the backup right now is Greg KH (Greg Kroah-Hartman, maintainer of the stable Linux kernel), who is about the same age as we are and has even less hair." True, Torvalds responded, "But the thing is, Greg hasn't always been Greg. Before Greg, there's been Andrew {Morton) and Alan (Cox). After Greg, there will be Shannon and Steve. The real issue is you have to have a person or a group of people that the development community can trust, and part of trust is fundamentally about having been around for long enough that people know how you work, but long enough does not mean to be 30 years." Hohndel made one last comment: "What I'm trying to say is, you've been doing this for 33 years. I don't want to be morbid, but I think in 33 years, you may no longer be doing this?" Torvalds, making motions as though he was using a walker, replied, "I would love to still do this conference with you." The report notes the contention around the integration of Rust, highlighted by the recent departure of Rust for Linux maintainer Wedson Filho. Despite resistance from some devs who prefer C and are skeptical of Rust, Torvalds remains optimistic about Rust's future in the kernel. He said: "Rust is a very different thing, and there are a lot of people who are used to the C model. They don't like the differences, but that's OK. In the kernel itself, absolutely nobody understands everything. I don't. I rely heavily on maintainers of various subsystems. I think the same can be true of Rust and C. I think it's one of our strengths in the kernel that we can specialize. Clearly, some people just don't like the notion of Rust and having Rust encroach on their area. But we've only been doing Rust for a couple of years, so it's way too early to say Rust is a failure." Meanwhile, Torvalds confirmed that the long-anticipated real-time Linux (RTLinux) project will finally be integrated into the kernel with the upcoming release of Linux 6.12.Read more of this story at Slashdot.